"It"s in the design...

"It"s in the design studio in South Korea, and staff from the UK have seen it," said our insider. "The car will use the five-door hatch as its basis, and it will probably get a folding metal hard-top."

Kia has marketed a cabrio before. The Elan of the Nineties was a rebadged version of the Lotus of the same name, but was a short-lived project that was never sold in Britain. The Rio CC would take the firm to new customers - but amazingly, not everybody is fully behind the plan.

Executives in the maker"s home market are playing it cool. Our insider said: "The Europeans and Americans are saying yes to the car, but the Koreans aren"t sure about it, because there"s no market for cabriolets there." He added that the newcomer is likely to go on sale by the third quarter of next year.